Discover the best tourist attractions of western Ukraine with Maria Zawaski! Maria is a freelance journalist, born on the West of Ukraine, got married to Canada. "Now, when I live abroad, I recommend to all my foreign friends to visit western part of my home country Ukraine. Why the western one - it is because I used to live there, so I am more familiar with that part of the country and I can tell lots of stories about the culture, lifestyle and traditions of Ukrainian West," Maria says

1.In North America or in Western Europe guests at weddings tap their wine glasses to get newlyweds to kiss.At a Ukrainian weddings guests sing a special song to make the bride and groom kiss:Oy girka horilka,
Ne budemo pyty,
Prosym molodogo
Ta y posolodyty!
Girko! Girko!
It means literally, “Horilka is too bitter, we will not drink it; we ask a groom to add some sugar to. Bitter! Bitter!” Then the newlyweds have to kiss.
I better show you this tradition on example of my wedding, so watch this video.

I hope you had fun watching this, especially when I am pretending like I am shy :) Old Ukrainian tradition says, a bride suppose to be shy at her wedding :)

2.Bride and groom are the only ones asked to kiss at West European or North American weddings:At a Ukrainian wedding not only the newlyweds are kissing, but each groomsman is suppose to kiss his bridesmaid. To make the bridesmaid and groomsman kiss, Ukrainians have a special song too.Ne budemo pyty
Tu girkuyu yushku
Nekhai potsilue
Starshyy druzhba druzhku.
Girko! Girko!The translation is almost the same as in the song for newlyweds, “We do not want this bitter drink, let the first groomsman kiss his bridesmaid! Bitter! Bitter!”.
The guests are singing the same song to the second bridesmaid and groomsman (to know more about special rank of bridesmaids and groomsmen at Ukrainian wedding, read here).
In some cases, when groomsman is too confused or too shy to kiss his bridesmaid, people are singing to him, “What a gromsman, what a fool, he is scared of bridesmaid like she is wearing a gas mask” :) Fortunately, both of groomsmen at my weddingwere not that shy: you can see on this video

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You don’t need visa for travel to Ukraine

If you are citizen of USA, Canada, European Union, Switzerland or Liechtenstein, you don’t need a TOURIST visa for travel to Ukraine. Decree about it was signed in 2005. Tourist visa to Ukraine means that you are going to stay in Ukraine not more than 90 days. So for your short term stay in Ukraine (less than 90 days) you just need to have a travel passport and to buy a ticket, that’s it.
P.S. The same rules work for the citizens of Japan, Andorra, Vatican, Iceland, Monaco, Norway and San Marino. People of these countries don’t need a tourist visa to Ukraine, too.